


she's lost control

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, BDSM, Cunnilingus, Daisy Takes Control, Dancing, Dom/sub, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Failed Sex, Friends to Lovers, Massage, Masturbation, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Romance, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Voice Kink, some disturbing body issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6663205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Hive's defeat leaves Daisy troubled, and Coulson willing to help her through unorthodox methods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. domestic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shortitude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/gifts), [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



She figures her feet are not dangerous weapons of mass destruction.

Probably.

And though she doesn’t want to touch herself after everything - can’t barely look at her body in the mirror when she showers - she guesses her feet are not the worst part to start. 

The problem is that someone else is touching her.

“It’s meant to be relaxing,” Coulson says, with teasing in his voice. It’s nice, normal. As if nothing had happened. As if she didn’t almost kill him a week ago. “You’re clamming up.”

The tv is on mute, the common area all theirs. Daisy has her feel comfortably propped on Coulson’s lap. He has his hands around them, massaging them slowly and patiently. He’s good, his hands know what they’re doing, and under different circumstances she might even enjoy it (though it’s Coulson, it would still be awkward to have him do this).

She’s not sure how they got from point A, watching a documentary on the pyramids and just hanging out, to point B, Coulson giving her a foot massage because he thinks that might help.

“I’m sorry, I know you thought this could help,” she tells him.

He closes his fingers around her toes, squeezes her right foot gently. Daisy feels it but she also _doesn’t_ , or rather she knows she is supposed to feel differently about it. More. But that’s how things are like right now. She knows it’s supposed to feel nice, even pleasurable, but she’s so numb about everything, and she’s getting so used to the numbness.

“Is this about getting me to use my powers again? Because I can’t. I literally can’t.”

Coulson shakes his head.

She knows it’s mental, okay? A block of some sort. She realizes there’s nothing physically wrong with her and Hive slithering away from her head didn’t leave any kind physical mark but still…

She’s tried, she really has. In controlled environments, away from people. And it just doesn’t work. It’s like her powers are gone. Not the only thing that’s gone.

“Of course it’s not about that,” Coulson says. “I just want you to relax.”

He digs his thumb into her feet. At least Daisy can tell when he’s touching her with his prosthetic. She’d like to talk about that, ask how it feels to have a part of his body that is his but not his at the same time. But they’ve never really talked about it or the fact her mother is responsible for Coulson losing his hand in the first place. She likes it better when he uses his prosthetic to massage her, it doesn’t connect her back to her body but it connects her to Coulson in a strange way Daisy can’t bring herself to admit.

At least she can admire the technique.

“You seem quite the expert on this,” she says.

It’s meant to sound light but Daisy can’t stop thinking about the fact that Coulson must have done this before with girlfriends and lovers and now he’s here with her, trying to make her feel better about her body as if Coulson himself isn’t still recovering from the horrible wounds _she_ inflicted. It’s sad, Coulson deserves more.

“Then why do you look so miserable about it?” he asks.

Her whole body tenses up. Well, more. She does that a lot these days. Tense. Numb. Two sides of the same coin.

“It’s not - the massage is nice, okay, Coulson?”

She lifts her feet and takes them away from Coulson’s hands. 

She sighs.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.

Coulson looks troubled for a moment.

“You don’t have to be sorry about this,” he says.

They have danced this particular dance for as long as Daisy has been out of Hive’s control. Coulson seems to find different, new ways to tell her none of this was her fault. Daisy always finds new, different ways of not believing him. Or believing him, but in a way that didn’t change anything.

“When we got rid of… that thing,” she explains. “He got out of my body but it’s like something else was lost in the process.”

“What?”

“Me,” Daisy replies. It’s the first time she’s been able to put it into words, what’s happening to her. It makes sense it’s with Coulson. “It’s like I abandoned my body as well. And I can’t get it back. It no longer feels mine. Like when I first transformed - I live in a strangers’ body and it’s dangerous and I hate it.”

She can feel herself becoming agitated. That’s the other thing these days. The constant frustration. It’s not Coulson’s fault. Daisy is not sure it’s anyone’s, not even hers.

Coulson seems to think on her words seriously.

“Do you think this is why-?”

“I can’t use my powers? Yep.”

She knows Coulson is not asking because he desperately needs his most lethal agent on the field asap - though he probably does, too. It might be easier if that were the case. Daisy feels her anxiety rise, just thinking about how much Coulson wants to help, how caring he is with her. And how guilty he feels, responsible for all of this.

"How can you even touch me?" Daisy wonders out loud. "After what I-"

"Stop that," he says, shaking his head. They've danced that dance before, too.

He rests his hand on his knee, palm upwards.

“Let me try again?” he asks in a small voice.

Daisy nods - it couldn’t hurt, and part of her is enjoying the intimacy between them, even if her condition is not improving. She lifts her feet to his lap again, as Coulson takes them into his hands once more, drawing his thumb along the arch of her foot.


	2. his hands

“It’s like my body is not mine anymore, it’s _his_ ,” she tells Coulson, not sure how she ended up sitting on his bed the night after the whole foot massage debacle. But Coulson hasn’t kicked her out, and he’s listening. “It’s horrible. I feel like I’m not welcome in my own skin.”

Coulson sits by her side.

“I think I understand,” he says, quietly.

She is skeptical about it but knows he means well.

“What do you need?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. If I knew I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.”

Because really who else can she ask? And Coulson doesn’t seem scared of her, and Daisy is curious about that, after what she did to him. How can he look at her?

“I can’t even bear to look at myself,” she confesses.

“Maybe you need someone else to look at you,” Coulson offers.

Suddenly Daisy feels like someone is prodding at a wound, gently pressing on the area. There’s some discomfort there, but also the startling possibility of healing.

“Would you…?” she starts. “I don’t want to have to ask.”

Coulson nods. He’s usually more hesitant. He would normally be more hesitant, about something like _this_. His uncharacteristic calm has a soothing effect on Daisy. she moves like a dream - like a good one, not like when _he_ was giving the orders.

“Daisy, do you want to undress? Have me look at you?”

It’s like something clicks inside her when Coulson says that. And a spark of feeling goes through her. It’s just a moment, but it’s like she feels in control again, like she can feel the nerve endings and the muscles under her skin again. It’s so brief, so tenuous she might as well imagined it. But maybe that’s progress too. Imagining she’s back in there.

She swallows and nods.

“Then undress,” Coulson says.

Her hands move to the buttons of her shirt, undoing them without looking. Daisy is focused on Coulson, who seems like he’s just waiting patiently. There’s a weird feeling of “normal” between them here.

When she finishes undressing (she avoids Coulson’s gaze for the underwear part) she feels the temptation to crack some stupid joke. But she doesn’t. She just stands in the middle of Coulson’s room, naked, letting him stare at her. She feels exposed, but not in a way that takes things away from her. She remembers how it felt to be under Hive’s control, a kind of nakedness because her body did not matter. Her body was part of a whole, a piece to a terrible puzzle. It wasn’t hers.

Now she feels her body as something _Coulson is looking at_ , and that makes her feel a lot better.

It’s still not hers, but at least it doesn’t belong to Hive.

Not right now, not as long as Coulson is with her.

“Lie down,” he says.

An order.

Like _he_ used to give. He didn’t have to be forceful about it. Daisy and the other felt happy to comply.

But it sounds different in Coulson’s voice.

The effect is similar, she really wants to do what the voice tells her.

Daisy never saw herself as kinky before - and okay, what they are doing is not exactly sexual. Even though she is naked in front of her boss and friend. But it feels a bit good, to climb on the bed and lie down just like Coulson’s voice told her. It feels better than most stuff has felt since Hive took over her body.

“I thought we could try this again,” he says behind her.

Daisy hearts him take something from the nightstand - she is a bit distracted by the fact that she’s lying on _Coulson’s bed_ and it’s very surreal - and she hears him open a bottle and suddenly she smells grapefruit and lemon.

“Citrus scented?” she asks, smiling into the crook of her elbow.

“My favorite,” he says.

Well, they have that in common.

She doubts Coulson has had much chances to use this lotion. She wonders for a moment if he bought it for Rosalind. Daisy feels a pang of abstract guilt, like everything connected to Grant Ward.

She concentrates on his hands. Maybe if she focuses on how Coulson is touching her she doesn’t have to think about herself.

“When I woke up after what happened in the Battle of New York, after my recovery,” he is saying, in a quiet, personal voice, as his hands spread the cool lotion over her shoulders and back. “It didn’t feel right. My body. It didn’t feel mine. People told me it was normal, but of course it wasn’t. I’ve felt like my whole body was a glove, something between me and the world.”

She hadn’t thought about that. About how Coulson’s body had been manipulated against his will, while he was dead. Used against him. It probably makes her a bad person but Daisy feels a little less lonely because of his words.

She feels his thumb dig into a hard knot of muscles between her shoulder-blades.

“What’s that? That hurts,” she says.

“This is the price you pay for being such a great hacker,” he tells her.

“What?”

“When you spend a long time with your arms in front of you, _this_ ,” he presses his index against the pained spot, “this is under stress, and over time it begins to hurt.”

His voice is really soothing right now. Daisy starts feeling less self-conscious about being naked. Coulson manipulating her body, it’s like a good version of what Hive did to her. And she wants more. But she’s not sure how to ask Coulson.

His left hand dips to the small of her back, right above her ass. He doesn’t massage her there as much as lets his fingertips play over her skin, and it relaxing.

“I used to be a sensual person,” he is telling her now. “But since I came back from the dead… I haven’t been able to recover that part of me. It gets better, but I’ve never been completely comfortable with my body again. I keep wondering if it’s really mine, or if it’s supposed to work at all. If I should be here at all. It’s always there, in the back of my mind.”

He runs his hand along Daisy’s spine and it feels almost-

_Almost_.

He doesn’t ask if it feels good, he knows it can’t. She can’t.


	3. his voice

She has been trying to somehow conjure up her powers again, but nothing.

And she has a problem, and a solution that might help everything, but talking about it with Coulson is mortifying. She said this wasn’t sexual, but...

He seems non-plussed about it. But worried about her comfort.

“If you don’t want me to watch, we can find a way-”

“No, it’s okay. I just - I can’t do it myself,” she confesses. “But I think that if you talk me through…”

Coulson nods, like it’s the most normal request in the world. She wonders why he’s so accommodating. Guilt, probably.

“Okay,” he replies. Daisy is a bit taken aback that he’d agree to something so bizarre so easily. “How do you normally do this, lying down?”

“Sitting, actually,” she tells him, only a little shocked to be talking about her masturbation habits with Coulson of all people. “The angle, it works better for me.”

He nods. “Sit on the pillows, your back to the headboard,” he says.

He’s quick and has caught up on how much it helps Daisy when he gives her orders. She slumps against the headboard, trying to remember her favorite position, the one that gives her easier access while keeping the angle just right. She’s probably providing Coulson with a lot of very personal information here, but it’s a fair trade.

“Is this why we’re doing this in your bunk?” Coulson asks. “Because you’re more comfortable.”

“I thought you’d be more comfortable,” Daisy tells him. “I didn’t want to gross you out in your own room.”

He gives her a sort-of-patronizing smirk.

“You’re not going to gross me out, Daisy,” he tells her, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like what they are doing is totally normal and not fucked up and like Daisy is not probably risking the best friendship of her life just to feel a bit better about herself.

She starts tugging at her top.

“No,” Coulson says, and she stops what she’s doing. “Keep your clothes on. Touch yourself through your clothes first. You come from the gym, you’re sweating. It’s good. Feel your connection to your body.”

She likes that he explains what he’s doing and why.

Hive never explained.

He didn’t have to.

Following his orders was bliss, you didn’t have to wonder why you were doing what you were doing (why you were breaking the wrist of the person you loved most in the world). Following orders was its own reward.

Coulson’s voice is different, he doesn’t just expect her to follow blindly. He needs for it to make sense to her. And there’s a sweetness to it. Hive never need it. His voice was ancient, all-encompassing. It was Daisy’s own voice at the end of it, she was forcing herself to do all those terrible things, her voice in perfect symbiosis with Hive’s, one and the same.

Coulson’s voice is his own. It doesn’t sound like anything else.

“Close your eyes,” he tells her and it comes back, that spark every time Coulson gives her an order. “You can think about someone nice doing nice things if you want.”

There’s humor in his voice and Daisy decides to tease him back.

“Can I picture Thor?”

“No, that would piss me off.”

She chuckles, closing her eyes.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to kill the mood,” she says.

“Hey, it’s your mood,” Coulson points out.

The darkness helps. She can imagine she’s someone else, or that she’s touching some other body.

Daisy doesn’t think about Thor, she thinks about Coulson’s hands. She presses one hand against her breast, pinching her nipple to get her started. The casual way in which Coulson held her feet in his hands, like they did that every night. Her right hand dips, rolling up her tank top to touch her belly. The way Coulson’s hands had tried to untangle all her knotted muscles, so patiently and carefully. She didn’t need to feel something to appreciate the gesture. She starts drawing circles over her stomach.

“How does that feel?” Coulson asks and his voices startles her but she doesn’t open her eyes.

“Not bad,” Daisy says, trying to put a positive spin.

She drops her hand between her legs, rubbing her clit through the fabric of her shorts. It’s a bit mechanical at first, she’s going through the motions, hoping habit will get her body there.

“I think it’s not just that you were under control what’s bothering you,” Coulson says all of the sudden. Daisy’s eyes open, her whole body tensing up. “Close your eyes,” he commands immediately.

She does it, going back to her previous position.

“You think because you hurt people you don’t deserve this,” he tells her in a tender, private voice. But she doesn’t want to hear about that. About her guilt, her responsibility. And of course she doesn’t deserve this. How could she? She doesn’t deserve to feel good. 

“But you deserve this,” Coulson argues. “You deserve to let go now. You deserve to feel good, to make yourself feel good. Come on, Daisy, slip your hand under your shorts. Touch yourself. Make yourself wet until you can push your fingers inside.”

She’s not sure what she was expecting when she asked Coulson this favor, if you can call it that. But she never thought she’d ever hear Phil Coulson say such dirty things, much less to her. Then again she has her hand inside her pants, it’s not like she can judge.

“You deserve it,” he keeps telling her, like a mantra, and Daisy finds herself heeding his orders if not quite believing he’s right.

She bites her bottom lip when she pushes the first finger inside, because it kind of feels good, and that takes her by surprise.

“You deserve _more_ ,” Coulson tells her. 

Fuck, she thinks. He’s going to make her come just with that voice. She pushes a second finger in.

Coulson keeps murmuring encouragements and his voice has gone lower and softer. Daisy likes to imagine huskier, too. She wonders if he is excited by watching her jerk herself off, if watching Daisy is making him hard.

“Fuck,” she breathes out, coming without realizing she was about it. Of course it was thinking about Coulson aroused what did it, which is a problem, because he’s here to help her - it doesn’t mean he _wants_ her. Not in that sense anyway.

She opens her eyes and feels vaguely embarrassed as she gathers herself.

Coulson doesn’t look troubled by the spectacle at all.

“Better?” he asks.

Daisy blinks at him.

“A lot,” she says. She’s a bit breathless, and not just from the orgasm. “I didn’t think…”

He looks back at her. He has a very chill expression for someone who just talked his subordinate into jerking herself off.

“I’m really glad,” he says, smiling a bit, looking triumphant. 

It occurs to Daisy he really wants to help, it’s not just appeasing his conscience because he let Hive roam free.

Daisy looks down at her hands. She needs a shower, a nice long one.

“Can we-?” she starts. Then looks up at Coulson. “Can I see you again?”


	4. negotiation

“Why do you keep these?” he asks, his eyes darting, distressed, over the gloves.

“I knew someday we might need them.”

“We don’t,” Coulson declares with finality.

“Okay, _I_ need them now.”

The gloves are on the bed, alongside the handcuffs. Coulson touches them, brushing his fingers against the cloth reverently. They’re again in Coulson’s quarters, because they’re bigger, and because Daisy doesn’t precisely feel comfortable around her things at the moment. 

“I thought these hurt you,” he says.

“They only hurt me back then because I was still transitioning and they messed with the process,” she explains. “Now they just dampen my powers. Otherwise perfectly harmless.”

“You’re telling me the truth, right?” Coulson asks.

She doesn’t get why he’s suddenly so contrary about this.

“Of course I’m telling you the truth,” she dismisses him.

“ _Daisy_ ,” he says, his voice hard and demanding. “You might be okay with getting hurt but I’m not okay with _hurting you_. Do you understand?”

She nods.

She wouldn’t do that to him. She wouldn’t trick him into hurting her.

(She also thought she’d never _hurt him_ and here they are)

“It won’t hurt, I promise,” she says. “I won’t force you to hurt me. But these are the only way I can let anyone else touch me right now.”

She wants Coulson to touch her, to make her come, but she doesn’t trust her body with him. She tried to explain all this to Coulson, in an excruciatingly awkward conversation. He got the idea, more or less, and told her it was good that she was coming up with it.

“This is not your first rodeo, I see, “ Daisy comments, amused by the range of his sexual experience.

He looks bashful for a moment, which betrays on which side he played before. It’s not a bad image - Coulson tied up - but Daisy knows she has no right to such fantasies. Not about him. It’s a further violation.

“No, it’s not my first time,” he says, steadier. “Which is how I know how important it is to talk things through beforehand.”

“I get that,” Daisy says. She’s a bit impatient to be done with the prologue, though. She’s not used to talking before sex much. Or at all. This is not exactly sex, she reminds herself. “Look if you don’t want to do this…”

“I want to help,” Coulson replies, which is not the same.

But she needs this - or she needs Coulson. Maybe they could be playing scrabble and the effect would be the same. The past few days she’s felt more at peace, and that’s a feeling she wants to chase.

She undresses. Being naked in front of Coulson gives her a wave-like nice feeling again. She could get addicted to it, if he were to let her undress in his presence all the time. It’s funny, even before an evil tentacled Charles Manson figure abducted her body and mind Daisy was always a bit uncomfortable about being naked around people. She pushed through and pretended to be bold and immodest for the sake of her lovers, but she never really enjoyed it.

The double failsafe of the gloves and the handcuffs. Maybe it seems like too much but it’s meant to be symbolic. 

Coulson helps her into both, carefully slipping the gloves over her hands. He still looks uncomfortable, as if he believed she does not belong in those gloves. They used to make her feel like that. They used to turn her stomach. But that’s because she hadn’t accepted how dangerous her body was.

She can’t allow Coulson of all people to touch her without a failsafe. 

“Can you move?” he asks her once he’s finished handcuffing her to the headboard.

She struggles a bit against the handcuffs. She could usually break free using her badass agent skills but the gloves make it kind of impossible.

“Not really,” she says, with relief.

Coulson squeezes her shoulder.

Daisy braces herself, closing her eyes until he touches her for the first time, like she expects it to hurt.

It doesn’t hurt.

It doesn’t hurt at all.

It’s not much at first, Coulson dropping kisses on top of her shoulder, her armpit, the sensitive inside of her arm. He stops and when Daisy opens her eyes he is looking right at her, waiting for further permission. She mouths the word “okay” and Coulson’s kisses get more confident, and he snakes one hand behind her back, pressing his palm against her skin.

Daisy likes that he’s completely dressed, she likes feeling the worn fabric of his sweater because she doesn’t think anyone else has seen him in it, it’s the stuff he wears when he wants to be comfortable and there’s nobody around. Daisy focuses on the details, the calluses of his hand as he thumbs the curve of her ribcage.

He kisses her neck, drawing her pulse with his tongue and Daisy tenses up. But for the first time in a long time it’s the _good kind_ of tenses up. She guesses they are definitely doing something sexual now and she’s not sure how that might affect their relationship (she doesn’t want it to, she doesn’t want Coulson to look at her differently, or like they can’t be comfortable around each other again) and she still wonders how Coulson can bear to touch her, how he’s able to get over what she did to him. 

Coulson gets her out of her own head by tightening his grip on her waist. He dips his head and traps her nipple in his mouth and it hardens against his tongue. Daisy definitely feels that, something about Coulson’s endlessly tender touching gets through the mental block, gets through what Hive did to her and gets to the center of her. She feels like when she was masturbating to Coulson’s voice but infinitely better.

She curls her toes, digging her heels into the mattress, but then the memory of pleasure, a different kind of pleasure, shakes her out of it.

She tries really hard not to let it show, to hide it from Coulson.

“Are you okay?” he asks, tearing his mouth from her, because of course he has noticed.

“Yes, it’s fine.”

His gaze hardens. “Talk to me, Daisy.”

When she was in the hivemind there was no need to keep things from anyone. Hive could see everything she thought and felt, could taste all of her memories.

“Daisy?” Coulson touches her bare knee.

She sits up a bit, so that the restraints are more comfortable. Coulson pulls back, leaving her some room.

“He made me enjoy it,” she tells him. “Every time I hurt someone, he made me experience this kind of... pleasure. So I wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with it.”

Coulson stares at her, looking heartbroken, looking old and vulnerable.

For a moment she thinks he’s going to kiss her.

(For a moment Daisy wants him to kiss her.)

He doesn’t, but he lifts his hand and strokes her cheek.

Then he drops on his elbows, taking Daisy’s knee in his hand and kissing it, the inside of her thigh too, until the bad memory dilutes a bit and her body relaxes again. Coulson kisses his way up her thigh, with clear intentions, and it occurs to Daisy that maybe she’s asking too much of him, that this is a line he shouldn’t cross.

“You know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she tells him.

“I know,” he says. “But I don’t think you want me to stop.”

He flashes her a cocky smile and Daisy is completely wrong-footed by it. Is he flirting? This is about her powers, right? About getting her back on the team. At least that’s what she thinks Coulson’s reasoning is. She knows - he’s pretty stuck up, he must have his own reasons for crawling between Daisy’s legs right now and pressing his mouth against her.

He gives her entrance a long lick first. Daisy is not wet yet but he brings her there quickly.

Coulson obviously knows what he is doing - in every sense, apparently - and it’s reassuring, but it’s also so different to every other experience. Lincoln was never like this, but he is the last person Daisy wants to be thinking about right now. Well, the second to last person, actually. 

Focus on good stuff, she reminds her body. If it could only listen.

Coulson pushes his tongue inside her, eating her out slowly as his fingers casually tap on the top of her thigh, and extra distraction that’s actually helpful. She looks down at Coulson’s head between her legs and suddenly she struggling against her handcuffs because she wants to touch his short, messy hair as he fucks her with his mouth. But she can’t, and the reassurance of the restraints intensify the pleasure.

After a while she feels herself starting to come.

Like the other night in her room, with his voice, but better.

She needs Coulson to stop, because she doesn’t know what will happen if he doesn’t.

(She remembers losing control, and the three days Coulson spent recovering in bed because of it)

“Stop, stop please.”

Coulson stops immediately. Pulling his tongue out, slowly, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

“What happened?” he asks.

Daisy takes a couple of long breaths, pulling her body from the edge. It’s not safe there. Not with another person in the room. Not with Coulson. She’s not going to hurt him any more.

“I was close,” she says, like an accusation.

Coulson backs down, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I felt that.”

She drops her gaze.

“Daisy, you can’t hurt me here,” he tells her.

“I can’t be sure of that,” she says, hopelessly.

He nods, “That’s okay.”

He moves up the bed, reaching for the handcuffs and untying her. Daisy feels like apologizing but that would only annoy Coulson, who is now gently peeling the damned gloves off her. Daisy flexes her fingers once they are free. She still feels a void where the pleasant hum of her powers used to be.

“Wait a moment,” Coulson tells her.

He brings his bathrobe back from the other room, and wraps Daisy in it, then makes her get under the covers of his bed. He’s careful not to touch her too much. Daisy would like him to stroke her cheek again, but she feels a bit childish about her desires to be cared for and comforted. Old orphan issues, no doubt. She should be worried about protecting people from herself instead.

“Maybe we should take a step back,” Coulson tells her.

She nods. He wants to stop this absurdity. Is this even about getting her powers back anymore? No, Daisy knows. She is just taking advantage of Coulson, of his guilt and his kindness.

“Meet me here tomorrow at midnight,” he tells her.

Daisy frowns at him.

“Wait. What? You still want to do this?” 

“Wear something comfortable,” Coulson says.

“Why? Do you want to fight me?”

He chuckles.

“No, not at all. Nothing violent,” he assures her. He runs her hand along Daisy’s arm, the bed sheets between them. She feels stupid. Why didn't she let him finish? Why didn’t she let herself come? _You deserve it_ , Coulson’s voice echoes in her head. Until now she only had Hive’s voice there, the things he used to tell her to make her do what he wanted. Coulson tells her something different. She wants his to be the louder voice - at least until she can get back her own.


	5. this guy's in love with you

He tells her to choose a record.

She looks down, the records are scattered over Coulson’s bed, between them. They’re both wearing jeans and comfortable sweaters. Coulson’s is not the usual old and soft one, it’s a tight-fitted, nice dark blue top.

“Which one is your favorite?” she asks.

“They’re all my favorites. I want _you_ to choose.”

“Is this like an assignment?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Daisy smiles at him. She knows what he’s doing there. She’s not really comfortable with choosing stuff recently, for obvious reasons. A stupid record is not a big thing - unlike, say, should she kill this guy or not? which was the kind of decision Hive took away from her - so she shrugs and chooses at random.

“Okay, this one then.”

She picks one where, on the cover, a bunch of well-dressed guys are standing comically in the middle of a field of yellow flowers. 

“Herb Alpert? Good choice,” Coulson says and goes to the player.

Daisy has no idea what he has planned. She sits on the edge of his bed, watching Coulson manipulate the machine’s needle. An old-fashioned record player was something really alien to Daisy. She never had a house, so she couldn’t afford to own big, heavy things. Not that Coulson’s is like that. It’s a light, suitcase model. But Daisy dedicated a good chunk of her life to the digital, it would have made no sense for her to own one of this. Plus, she doesn’t really like music that much.

When the song starts it’s a nice, old-fashioned melody. Sixties? She guesses. It’s vaguely familiar, she probably heard it in some movie.

Coulson turns to her and offers his hand.

“Are you for real?” she asks, giving him a look-over. “Oh you’re totally for real here.”

She shakes her head, not believing it.

“Your body is not a weapon,” Coulson says, changing the mood rather abruptly. “You just need a reminder.”

“Hence the dancing,” she says, getting it. It’s rather sweet in a totally Coulson-like way. God, she loves him.

“Hence the dancing,” he repeats, his hand still extended towards her.

Daisy gets up and approaches him carefully. She rests her hand on his, feeling how warm his palm feels against hers. His skin is not smooth exactly - too many years of shooting range practice - but it feels nice to the touch.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Coulson says, like he’s reading her thoughts (bad, bad figure of speech, Daisy shivers at the line and then she composes herself, wrapping her fingers around Coulson’s hand).

“Yes, it’s fine,” she says quickly.

He raises an eyebrow but decides not to push further. His left hand goes to Daisy’s waist, in a total classic dancing move. He lets Daisy be the one to step into his space and press their bodies together so they can start dancing. She’s afraid she’s hesitating too much and the song will end. But it’s only been a few moments, it just felt longer.

“I hate being like this,” she tells Coulson as they start moving to the music. It’s easy and slow and she doesn’t have to think too much about it, just let herself go. Her words just follow and maybe she’s been looking for a way to just talk about it, and dancing seems the perfect distraction for both of them. “Having people think they need to take care of me like this.”

“Like this? You mean me?”

She nods at him.

As much as she appreciates what Coulson is doing for her it’s also a reminder that _she needs it_. She doesn’t want needing. Need is incompleteness. Incompleteness is how Hive took advantage of her.

“He made me weak,” Daisy laments. For someone with the face of Grant Ward to make her this weak… it’s adding insult to injury.

“You’re not being weak,” Coulson protests, sliding his hand from her waist to the small of her back, pulling her towards him. “You’re just… human.”

She can’t help but smile.

“Is that a joke?”

Coulson freezes for a second, missing the beat. 

“No, I just… it’s a manner of speaking. Sorry.”

“No, it’s good. I was beginning to worry you were going all robot Coulson, you seem so sure of everything you’re doing here.”

He smiles a bit and sways and his nose brushes Daisy’s hair.

“I’m not sure of _anything_ ,” he says. “I always have doubts. That’s who I am. But when you’re in trouble, it doesn’t matter. I have to do something.”

Daisy stares at him, surprised at his honesty. Touched by the meaning of his words.

To lighten the mood Coulson makes her twirl in a silly way, and they both chuckle and their bodies bump on the way back.

If Daisy forgets the circumstances this is actually pretty fun. Hanging out at the Director’s room. Dancing like idiots to some mushy old record. Daisy can’t help but relax. Her body relaxes of its own volition in Coulson’s arms.

“You’re good at this,” she tells him.

“You don’t need to sound so surprised, Agent Johnson.”

“No,” she says, daring to touch his chest a bit. It’s been all about Coulson touching her until now. Daisy touching him is a lot more dangerous. “May told me you loved the dance classes at the academy. She didn’t tell me you were good at them.”

“You’re not bad yourself,” he tells her.

The only dancing she remembers is silly country stuff with Miles, about a million years ago.

This is easy in comparison; she feels like she just has to follow Coulson’s pulse, and she is very aware of her body and not in a bad way, surprisingly. She is very connected to the way Coulson moves his hips, and the way his hand moves up Daisy’s back as he pulls her in closer. 

Feeling connected to the way Coulson breathes and moves makes her ache for more. For a connection back to herself. But not alone, with Coulson. She can’t put it into words (she’s not sure she can bring herself to tell him, even if she had the language), but she wants more.

( _You deserve it_.)

She feels Coulson pressing his lips against her temple as he pulls her even closer, as close as he can without making her feel trapped, and they sway rather than dance to the music. It’s such a sickly sentimental music. It’s weird but this feels way more intimate than having his tongue inside her. She can feel his heartbeat against her chest. She hears Coulson softly humming the tune, like he can’t stop himself.

She pays attention to the lyrics.

“And is he?”

“What?”

“This guy from the song. Is he in love with-?”

“Yeah.”

His quick answer knocks the air out her.


	6. bound

“It’s your favorite tie.”

“You know which one is my favorite tie?” he asks, looking amused.

She looks away, fearing she’s given herself away.

“There’s a reason why I’m using my favorite tie,” Coulson says.

“Is that because I’m your favorite person?”

“Yeah,” he admits, with touching honesty.

Daisy thinks he wants to kiss her and though he pretty much told her he loved her and also went down on her hardcore the other night she understands his hesitation. She wants to kiss him too, she thinks. But it’s hard to know, because she’s been so disconnected from her body, and she still doesn’t trust that it’s not going to hurt them both.

“The second tie?” she asks.

“For your hands,” he replies.

Daisy considers it.

“Have you ever tried this?” Coulson asks.

She shakes her head. “The idea bothered me, before…”

Before _him_.

Daisy hopes Coulson doesn’t think it’s messed up that she wants this.

“It makes sense to me,” he says, twisting the tie experimentally in her hand. “You told me you felt like you couldn’t move unless he _allowed_ you to move. It makes sense that you want to reenact that in a safe space. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It’s pretty basic stuff but Daisy is happy with the lack of judgement. She hasn’t always been the most adventurous person in bed, in part because she was ashamed of some of the things she felt.

“You trust me?” Coulson asks.

Well, she is already naked in his bed. Because apparently that’s one of her hobbies now. Being naked around Coulson.

“Yes, I trust you,” she says, thinking, _with everything_. “I just don’t know why you can still trust me.”

He doesn’t answer that. 

He lifts his gray tie to her eyes and makes a knot behind her head.

“Too tight?”

Daisy touches it. She can’t see anything. The tie smells like Coulson, the fabric is soft and rich. She can’t see anything but he can feel Coulson close to her.

“Lie on your stomach,” he tells her.

He starts with another massage to loosen her up. This time she is much more receptive than the first time, can feel Coulson’s fingers dig into her clearly, the tender inner rhythm of his caresses. This time he works on her thighs and ass as well, reaching down to stroke her between her legs. Daisy squirms against the mattress, startled by how easily he can raise shivers of pleasure through her. Maybe it’s because she’s so relaxed now. Or because she’s blindfolded and everything is heightened, especially the feel of loving hands on her skin. Coulson’s touch is unassuming, it doesn’t feel like he thinks she owes anything to him. So different from when Hive pulled her into an embrace, forced her to touch Grant ward’s body despite knowing how she felt about the man.

“Ssh,” Coulson whispers, sensing her sudden distress. “No bad thoughts.”

He strokes the back of her neck, running his fingers through her hair for a while until she comes back to him, comes back from wherever Hive still has her trapped.

“Put your hands behind your back,” he tells her.

He binds her wrists with his tie, quite expertly.

“Not too tight.”

She shakes her head. Or the equivalent when you have your face pressed to the mattress, but Coulson doesn’t ask again so it seems to be enough. She likes the pressure of the fabric on her hands. The sense of artificial powerlessness, because she knows the moment she tells Coulson to untie her he will. 

“I tried to fight him, I swear,” Daisy says, and perhaps it’s a good thing she can’t see anything right now.

“I know,” Coulson says, drawing his hand up her thighs.

He works two fingers inside her. Daisy bites her bottom lip when the waves of pleasure start to hit.

“I tried not to do what he wanted,” she goes on. “I tried not to hurt-” _You_. “Not to hurt anyone.”

“I know you did,” Coulson tells her.

“But-”

“Daisy, you’re not going to hurt me,” he whispers in her ear. “And I’m not going to hurt you. Do you believe me?”

She swallows.

“Y-yeah… I think I do.”

“Do you want to do this?”

“Yes,” she says. She knows what this is, and Coulson starts kissing the back of her neck to make sure. “I want to be with you.”

She’s pretty sure they are in love with each other, but too awkward to say it out loud.

Coulson draws back and she listens patiently as he takes off his clothes. She never imagined she’d be saying this (even if it’s not out loud) but Daisy wishes she could see him right now, naked. It’s only fair.

He plants one hand on top of her ass and Daisy feels his bare legs - quite hairy, she can feel everything - maneuvering between hers.

“You’re not weak, Daisy,” he tells her, looping arm around her middle so he can lift her hips a bit. “You are strong and kind and he took advantage of that.”

He reaches between her legs and strokes her clit a couple of times, making sure she’s wet and ready.

“Is this okay?” he asks, pressing the tip of his cock against her. Not being able to see everything - every sound, every caress, the slight shaking of Coulson’s body as he tries to hide his nervousness - is a piece to the puzzle in front of her.

It’s more than okay, Daisy thinks. But that’s not what Coulson is asking.

“He was everywhere,” she tells Coulson. “He was inside my head. Inside my blood.”

Coulson’s hand twitches over her hip, and Daisy can imagine what kind of face he is making.

“I want you inside me,” she tells him.

Coulson plants one kiss on her elbow and slides his length into her, slowly, to let her get used to his presence. He feels so big but - no offense to him - Daisy knows it’s because her body is a series of knots unwilling to loosen on their own. Coulson draws out slowly and then pushes in again, until it becomes easier and Daisy starts hoping he’d do it faster, harder. But Coulson is gentle, soft, is doing this on his own terms. He presses his chest against Daisy’s tied arms and drops his head to kiss her cheek.

It’s kind of messed that they haven’t kissed yet. But she doesn’t waste her time thinking about this, because this feels good. Genuinely good. Not just as-much-as-anything-can-feel-good-right-now, no. 

Just _good_.

She wishes she could see Coulson’s face right now (she can’t really imagine it, what does he look like when he fucks somehow? does he prefer the expression “make love”? god, he probably does, Daisy realize, giddy with fondness for the man) but being in the dark sharpens everything she is feeling. Which, she guess was Coulson’s plan. Not his first rodeo. She’ll have to ask about that.

She doesn’t even struggle with the restraints this time. Her body is docile but it’s _her choice_. It was her choice to put herself in Coulson’s hands and now she just enjoys the way his body moves into her and she just has to wait for him, her body still but welcoming.

The strange thing is that Coulson, who has been all cool and calm and _helpful_ until now, suddenly becomes human and vulnerable above her, inside her. He moans into her neck as he thrusts into her, his fingers twisted around the curve of Daisy’s shoulder, losing his own sense of control himself, calling Daisy by the wrong name and then apologizing in whispers.

Every nerve ending tingling as she builds up to an orgasm.

She feels such an immense, almost painful _relief_ when she comes. Not just from coming, but from coming with Coulson inside her, clenching around him and pulling him in with her. She presses her sobs against the mattress, hiding them.

Coulson pulls out and finishes on his own, she gathers, letting Daisy catch her breath on her own as well.

Once he’s recovered Coulson hurries to untie her first, and then take the blindfold off her. He gets a horrified look on his face when he sees the tears.

Daisy takes his hands in hers.

“No, no, they’re good tears,” she says. “They’re- _relief_ , it’s just relief.”

He frees one of his hands to stroke her face.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

Daisy laughs.

“I was not expecting that question.”


	7. ice cream

“Is this part of the process?” she asks, licking her spoon.

“Very much so,” he says.

He’s looking kind of smug.

Maybe it’s the sex, she doesn’t know (how does Phil Coulson look after sex? maybe like this). Maybe it’s taking a break from the base, sneaking out in the middle of the night and driving downtown.

“This is amazing, you know,” Daisy tells him, taking another spoonful of chocolate into her mouth.

“Best ice cream in DC,” he says.

The place doesn’t look that impressive and Daisy was a bit wary when Coulson led her here. It’s a little hole in the wall with some garden furniture in front and Coulson is obviously so proud of having found it.

They have parked Lola right in front and the passersby stop and stare at her, and Coulson _loves it_ , love the attention, because he’s a total dork who is in love with his car.

She shakes her head, laughing at him.

She feels a lot more like herself here, in the open. She thought she’d be nervous about all these innocent civilians around her, around her body, and Coulson did have to bribe her a bit by letting her drive Lola, but once here, in the middle of everyone else’s regular Saturday night, she feels fine. 

“I know this is not like, a relationship,” she says, self-deprecating. “But I have to say, this is basically the best date I’ve had in years.”

Coulson frowns at her, looking alarmed all of the sudden. Did she cross a line calling this “date”? She’s not sure how else to describe this. They arrived here in a red convertible and now they are eating ice cream and sitting so close together Daisy can smell the cologne Coulson haphazardly splashed on to cover the smell of having recently had sex. Sounds like a date to her.

“Why is this not a relationship?” he asks her, very solemn.

Daisy doesn’t know what to say, starts a couple of words but nothing beyond “Well…” or “I…”

Why did she say this wasn’t a relationship? Mainly because she’s afraid of losing him. Typical, even clichéd, but she never claimed her issues were original.

“We’ve had sex,” Coulson argues. “I told you I loved you. _We danced_. That’s normally a relationship to me.”

Daisy smiles, taken aback by Coulson’s confidence in _them_.

He takes her hand in his - she remembers his invitation to dance and maybe this is how it works, she starts connecting good things with other good things, instead of having Coulson rewrite all the bad stuff that’s happened to her. That’s unfair. This is better. Coulson’s fingers entwined with hers remind her of her fingers entwined with Coulson’s.

He drops his head and presses one kiss to her knuckles.

“I know we have done it out of order but…”

“You don’t say,” Daisy replies. “We haven’t even kissed yet.”

Coulson leans towards her.

“Ah, yes, I plan to fix that very, _very_ soon.”

He does.

“I have an assignment _for you_ this time,” Daisy tells him afterwards, licking the taste of strawberry from her lips.

He seems intrigued.


	8. kissing it better

“This is where I broke your wrist,” she says, holding his right hand up. “I can feel it here, under the skin.”

They’re in his room again, sitting cross-legged on her bed (hey, Coulson can sit cross-legged, he is flexible and no, she hasn’t forgotten that, she never will). Fully clothed, for once. There’s a kind of tense calm between them, once their feelings are out in the open.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Coulson tells her, eager to appease her about his injuries.

She’s getting over that, but she wants Coulson to work through it too.

She brings his wrist to her mouth, kisses it gently.

“When I was part of Hive I couldn’t hide anything from him,” she explains. Perhaps the last thing she had left to explain. “That’s why he had me hurt you. Because he knew…”

Coulson leans over and touches his fingers to her face.

“He knew how you felt about me,” he finishes.

She nods, though a bit annoyed that he is so confident, when she hasn’t even told him how she feels.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “He used me to hurt you.”

“No,” Coulson says. “He used me to hurt _you_.”

That makes a strange kind of sense and Daisy is only realizing now. Hive’s control of her - Coulson was a threat to it, because of how she felt, because it made her fight harder against Hive’s voice whispering in her head.

 _Hurt him, hurt him_.

And she did hurt him.

She brushes her thumb over the almost invisible line that crosses Coulson’s cheek.

“This left a scar,” she says.

He cover her hand with his, pressing his face against the palm as if Daisy’s touch was balsam to it.

“You look a bit like my mother with it,” she says.

“Hey!”

She leans over and kisses the area where her powers cut into Coulson’s flesh.

Hurting Coulson was her worst nightmare come true, and she knew it as it happened, because Hive knew too. What a fool she’s been, Daisy realizes, she should have known how she felt about Coulson then. Hive knew. Why didn’t she?

“Which one hurt the most?” she asks Coulson. “Or is that a weird question?”

“I think it’s a messed up question,” he replies, chuckling softly and bit nervously.

She can’t help it, she wants to kiss it better. She wants to kiss everything better.

He grabs Daisy’s hand by the wrist and he guides her fingers to the back of his head, pressing her fingertips against a little scar right under the short hair.

“The one that hurt the most,” he says. “Because it was the first one.”

“That’s from where I threw you against the wall?” she asks.

He nods.

Daisy slides her mouth over his. “I’m so sorry,” she mutters against his lips, while stroking the back of his skull.

“I know. It’s not your fault, but I know you are sorry.”

She keeps kissing him and it soon becomes A Thing. Where she had been so fearful of touching and being touched now it’s like she can’t get enough. (Okay, there’s still fear, there’s other stuff, and the voice in her head that goes _you’re only going to hurt him_ is easily drowned out by Coulson’s moans when Daisy touches her tongue to the roof of his mouth)

Then she pushes him on his back and straddles his lap and everything gets so much better.

As much as she liked and needed Coulson taking control and telling her what to do in bed before she’s suddenly relieved to be, literally, on top again, pinning Coulson’s arms above his head. He seems delighted about it, too.

“We should have started with the kissing,” Daisy says, licking Coulson’s bottom lip.

“Definitely, “ he agrees enthusiastically, as enthusiastically as he is kissing her back.

He playfully struggles against her grip but Daisy’s weight and skills with her legs keeps him down. She feels triumphant about it, cocky, and would like to do more things to Coulson. Perhaps that’s her next assignment She doesn’t think it will take too much to get Coulson to play along, judging by the obvious erection pressed against Daisy’s thigh right now.

To be honest Daisy’s kind of shocked that he is hard again, twice in one night. He’s a SHIELD agent, but at his age…

“Why are you smiling maliciously?” Coulson asks, feeling her smirk against his mouth.

She doesn’t reply immediately, nor does she stop smiling. She drops her hand to his crotch, palming his obvious erection. Coulson lets out a grunt and oh the face he’s making. Daisy almost regrets having been blindfolded earlier tonight, if this was what she was missing. She unzips him and frees his cock, and how weird it is that it’s the first time she is seeing it.

“It seems like Little Phil is ready for his close-up, Mr DeMille.”

She can’t believe she’s just said that.

Coulson laughs.

“I’m so glad I fell in love with you,” he says.

Daisy remembers being speechless when they danced and he sort-of-told-her he loved her.

Good things bringing back good memories. Even if it was only a few days ago.

She wraps her hand around his wrist - the one she broke - staring down at him.

“Hey,” she says, like she’s about to accuse him of some henious crime because this is a henious crime because how dare him.

“What?” he asks, cheeks flushed from arousal.

“I never expected anyone to say that to me,” she confesses. “Miles said he was wrong when he thought I was what he was looking for. Ward said that loving me was a weakness, and he thought I should be punished for it. And Lincoln… he made clear he didn’t consider me a priority. None of them were happy to love me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Coulson tells her, arching his body to kiss her jaw. “You deserved better.”

Daisy pulls back, holding Coulson down.

“And I suppose you’re that _better_?” she teases him.

He doesn’t take it as a joke, because it’s Coulson, of course he does.

“I don’t know if I am,” he says in his serious soft voice. It reminds her of the day he had to leave her in the Retreat. “But I’m happy to try.”

“ _Happy_ ,” she mutters, tasting the word, tasting Coulson’s mouth in hers.

They both still taste of ice cream.


	9. epilogue

There are more assignments over the next few weeks, and she and Coulson spend basically every free moment they have together. They are really obvious but if the team is bothered they haven’t said. Yes, it’s too soon, Daisy could agree on that. But she doesn’t care. There’s proper dates (in proper restaurants, because Coulson is a dork who loves to show off) and lots of sex - and not all of it weird. She can’t complain. She hasn’t stopped feeling guilty, of course, but that might be okay for now. Until she figures it out.

Tonight’s assignment was that they’d sleep in Daisy’s bed. 

She has been staying in Coulson’s since the beginning. Bigger, and she she feels safer in it.

Like now, lying on her side with Coulson’s prosthetic arm looped around her waist because he was too tired to remember to take it off and put it back in the box. It's normally a struggle to see who gets to be the little spoon and tonight she won. They’ve only been asleep for a few minutes when Daisy turns around and shakes him by the shoulder.

“Coulson, Coulson.”

“What, what?”

He rubs his eyes like a kid.

“The Hula girl is shaking.”

He narrows his eyes at Daisy, like he’s wondering if she’s still asleep. Like he’s wondering if _he_ is still asleep.

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

She points at the Hule figure on her nightstand, then concentrating her powers on it she begins to make her shake.

“Are you doing that?” Coulson says, in awe.

It’s such a small thing - Daisy knows she could level cities with her powers, and yet this feels like the greatest triumph she’s ever achieved.

“How?” Coulson keeps asking.

“I don’t know.”

She knows.

She’s relaxed.

She’s happy.

She feels safe with Coulson.

She’s in love - with him, yes, but more importantly, with herself. And though that sounds like a cheap self-help manual Daisy can’t explain it any other way.

“I was falling asleep and I started thinking it’d be funny if the Hula girl started to shake and… it happened.”

Coulson finally tears his gaze from the moving doll.

He grabs Daisy’s face in his hand and turns her towards him and kisses her passionately, leaving her panting.

“See?” he says. “I told you you’d get them back.”

Daisy can’t really explain how it feels to have her powers back. She once resented having them and would have done anything to get rid of her “curse”. She knows subconsciously she blocked them out because they had hurt people she loved - _she_ had hurt those people, but she had used her powers.

But she had felt incomplete, heartbroken without being able to use them.

She turns towards Coulson again. “Thank you,” she says, kissing him. “I wouldn’t have gotten here without your help.”

He gives her an amused smile.

“You would have gotten here,” he tells her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her against him. “But I’m selfish and I’ll happily take the credit for speeding things up.”

She chuckles, too happy to argue against it.

“The Hula girl shook,” she repeats, not quite believing it yet.

“Yeah it did,” Coulson says, pressing her against his chest.


End file.
